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RTD On-Time Departure


Background


The mission of Denver's Regional Transportation District (RTD) is to provide convenient bus and rail service to the Denver Metro Area. RTD operates more than 170 bus routes, 12 rail lines, and specialty services like Park-N-Ride for commuters, Access-A-Ride for disabled rides, and the free 16th Street Mall Ride. According to the 2019 Board of Directors Report, RTD's 2019Q3 KPI for local on-time performance was 86%

RTD's 2019Q3 KPIs

As someone who recently transitioned from a personally owned vehicle to more sustainable forms of transportation, I would like to investigate whether or not they are still meeting this goal and what lines/routes have a higher or lower on-time performance than the entire system as whole. My hypotheses will be: $$\large H_0 \text{: RTD's Local On-Time Service >= 86%} $$ $$\large H_A \text{: RTD's Local On-TIme Service < 86%} $$

Dataset


GTFS-RT

My dataset is pulled from RTD's Public GTFS-RT (General Transit Feed Specification - Realtime Transit) feeds . There are 3 feeds in RTD's GTFS-RT data:

  1. Alerts: This feed includes alerts about unforeseen events like route disruptions and stop closures
  2. Trips: This feed includes trip progress and arrival/departure predictions including delays, cancellations, or changed routes.
  3. Vehicle Position: This feed includes vehicle locations, the upcoming stop, and can include optional data like congestion level (occupancy) of the vehicle.